Exceptional
by DreadPirateRai
Summary: Growing up a mutant isn't the easiest thing in the world, but now Santana has Brittany things are so much better. When the war between humans and mutants threatens to break out, the mutants of Lima, Ohio have to band together and figure out what to do.
1. Chapter 1

Some people are special, some are smarter than other, some are good athletes and some have a gene that gives them power, and those are the really special people, those are the mutants. Studies show that mutations are more commonly discovered around a person's teenager years, so Santana liked to think she was extra special. She was six when she discovered what she could do, advanced healing, mortal wounds healed in seconds, she was essentially invincible and that made her better than anybody else. At age fifteen she had watched X-Men one too many times, and in one drunken night she's had metal surgically grafted to her skin including three claws that retracted when she didn't need them. She was a walking talking Wolverine, only much more badass, her mother did not think so.

She was sixteen when the new transfer student waltzed into Spanish class, all long legs, blonde hair and strawberry scented perfume. If Santana was special, then she knew this girl was a rarity, like a red diamond only much more beautiful. She was friendly too, and when she chose to sit down next to her, Santana didn't give her the customary get the hell away from me glare. Her name was Brittany and she was the liveliest, happiest person Santana had ever met, and by the end of the first lesson Brittany and Santana were best friends.

It soon became apparent that Brittany wasn't the brightest person ever. She had some of the lowest ever grades, and sometimes she said the most peculiar things but she danced gracefully, and Santana was enamoured of her and though she'd never admit it, it sort of felt nice to have someone depend on her, it felt great taking care of Brittany.

She was seventeen when she finally worked up the courage to tell Brittany the truth about her mutation, only she really had to work on her timing. The night Santana planned to tell her was the night that the world turned its back on her. She saw it on the news, the order to force mutants to register themselves on special registers, to keep an eye on them was what the officials said. Brittany knew there was something wrong almost instantaneously, and the warm hand pressed against her own reassured Santana that maybe Brittany wouldn't judge her a threat and a weirdo and that maybe she'd still want to be friends.

The next day was when everybody found out. She arrived at school to see two big red tents covering each side of the path and one large queue of students waiting to get in the left hand side. The right hand side was almost empty, save for three scared looking students sat on little plastic chairs. A couple more students joined them as the queue shortened; Santana was one of the last to go through the left hand tent where her heart stopped when she discovered they were testing for mutants. They needn't have tested Santana's blood because the moment the needle withdrew the wound healed and a huge brick of a man escorted her to the other red tent, the mutant tent.

Brittany who stood three people behind her wasn't escorted to the mutant tent, and so Santana knew that she was effectively normal. She couldn't decide if that was a good or a bad thing, good because Brittany didn't deserve the humiliation of publically being declared a mutant, bad because they couldn't be outcasts together and maybe live in a shack somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

The occupants of the mutant tent didn't appear so bad, except Santana noted Quinn Fabray who stared at her like she knew things about Santana that she would rather keep a secret. It turned out that Quinn Fabray did know things Santana wanted to keep on the down low, she was a telepath and Santana made it all too easy for Quinn to read her mind. Quinn's boyfriend whose name was Finn something or other sat to her left hand side, his hand firmly in Quinn's, and Santana realised his talent when she caught him hovering three feet in the air a good few weeks ago, he was a flyer and Santana suspected a rather good one. But there little setup was a little too sweet for Santana's taste, but the presence of one Rachel Berry and her unrequited crush on Finn added a little drama, even if she did grate on Santana's patience far too much. Santana often liked to joke that annoyance was Rachel's mutation, either that or it was her height that was bordering on legal dwarfism, turns out that Rachel could belt out those notes, she could also belt out some pretty mean ultrasonic waves that made Santana's ears want to bleed.

Finn's sometimes best buddy and Santana's occasional fuck buddy Puck sat next to Rachel, but his attention was on the heifer next to him, the intolerable Lauren Zizes. Puck was magnet, and not just for babes, seriously the guy could attract anything to him from people to cars, and Lauren was as freakishly strong as she was annoying, if she was to be believed she bench pressed two 4x4's without breaking a sweat. Sam was the only other one Santana knew well, because although he was the new kid he had scored a spot on the football team, a place that had absolutely nothing to do with the speed that boy could run, even though Santana was sure he couldn't go that fast for fear of tripping over those huge ass lips of his. Sam's other half was one Mercedes Jones, one hell of a diva and apart from an inappropriate obsession with tater tots could make the earth quake from the other side of the world.

She sort of knew Mike, but was never really sure of his name she did however know he had some sick dance moves and an insane ability to make his body do impossible things, and could be likened to a contortionist, only no contortionist could ever fit themselves inside a match box on a drunken dare, or slip under the crack in the door when his friends had locked him in the bathroom as a prank. Tina she knew as the other Asian, and Mike's self proclaimed soul mate, although her gift left something to be desired, she supposed turning into animals would be an awesome power, only not if the only animal you could turn into happened to be a duck. That was quite frankly a little embarrassing, although Santana supposed Brittany would just love that.

The kid in the wheelchair and the boy who likes boys rounded out the unlikely little group, and though Santana struggled to remember their names, Quinn did not, Artie Abrahams and Kurt Hummel. Brittany had once confided that she thought Artie was like a transformer, and Santana couldn't help but wonder if that was his power, to turn into like a fire engine or a jet plane, but then she notes with a chuckle he's more likely to turn into a mobility scooter. What she doesn't know is that she's sort of close, he doesn't turn into a machine, but he can communicate with them, get them to work on their own, he could hack into the most secure places and still nobody would be any wiser. Kurt Hummel was just as bitchy as Santana, but infinitely nicer too, she liked him in her own strange sort of way, and his ability to travel through time was pretty damn amazing, and Santana thought that maybe he was just as amazing as her.

Before they were allowed to leave the tent they were forced to add their name and power to the mutant register, taking note of the status of each one of them. She was a little annoyed that they had seen fit to classify her as a Class C mutation, compared to the big fat class A next to Kurt's name. Then she supposed it wasn't necessarily a bad thing when Kurt was effectively tagged with a special earring. When they were read the newly enforceable mutant control act she was shocked to discover that class A mutants were deemed exceptionally dangerous, and that one wrong move could see Kurt locked up for the rest of his life. Class B was for the mutants with powers that were deemed to have powers that could be a danger and included everybody but Tina, Puck and herself. They had pride of place in class C, powers that couldn't hurt anyone except of course Santana's pride. She spent the rest of the walk up to school cursing the normal people and cultivating the idea that it wasn't her that need to be registered and controlled it was them, Brittany was the notable exception of course.

When she entered the school everybody turned to stare, laughing and whispering about the mutant, the totally non dangerous mutant. She was about ready to show them how dangerous she could really be when a warm hand grasped her arm and pulled Santana towards her. Her face landed straight in cleavage and that only added to her anger before she breathed in and all she could smell was strawberry perfume, then she was in no hurry to move from her position. Santana was released only when Brittany was sure that she was calm and posed no immediate danger to anybody, proving to Santana once again how truly lucky she was to have Brittany as her friend. It was also times like these that she began to wonder if Brittany didn't have a mutation of her own, empathy would explain how Brittany knew her so well, and emotional manipulation would defiantly make her feel better about Brittany's ability to calm her down. Only she passed the mutant test this morning, and Santana had one more Brittanyism to add to her why I love Brittany S Pierce list, not that she would ever admit to having such a list.

Things got steadily worse for the mutants from then on, slushies became a regular occurrence whenever one of them so much as looked at any of the normal people and other various pranks became the norm. Santana was proud to discover that Brittany was the exception; she always had been the exception, she was also proud to discover that Brittany fit right in with the other mutants, and no amount of slushies or wedgies could sway her. She was more than happy when Brittany admitted that it was all for Santana, because even before she was a social outcast she had never let Brittany feel anything other than loved and normal, and that even though they Brittany herself wasn't a mutant they could be unusual together. She was even more surprised when Brittany sealed the deal with a quick peck on the lips, followed by ten or twenty passionate make out sessions and three mind blowing orgasms.

Over the next few months Santana found herself sinker deeper into self loathing as Rachel Berry, Quinn Fabray and the rest of the losers became a permanent fixture in her life through the power of a glee club, which really was just a polite way of saying a club for losers, mutants and combinations of the above. Still brilliant Brittany was there with her, hands clasped tightly together and occasionally trying to feel her up while Quinn tried not to look uncomfortable and Mr Schue the mutant sympathiser wrote their latest assignment on the board. Life on the outside became steadily worse too, because now even the smallest crimes were supposedly committed by mutants, who were being picked up of the street and thrown onto death row, granted most never made it that far having escaped through various different powers. Santana was actually quite scared that pretty soon they would just start opening firing on mutants, so the glee club banded together and Santana announced her plans to make the world a safer place, she was going to take it over. Despite vehemently disagreeing with each other Santana was in the superb position of being in a group where she was the strongest personality, so nobody dare disagree and the one person who was strong enough and brave enough to stand up to her, agreed with her anyway. It defiantly didn't escape her notice that Quinn was a lot like herself.

Brittany took the news surprisingly well for somebody Santana had just declared war on, but then she supposed that Brittany knew she wouldn't let any harm come to her, they were soul mates in every sense of the word even if Santana hadn't yet broached the subject of being in love. The only time the group had to plan was during glee club, where Artie was often employed to make Mr Schue's laptop or phone go haywire so he would be fashionably late, he had even once talked Mr Schue's car into driving off all on its own, that had really freaked him out, so much so he wasn't in school the next day. So obsessed with brining the humans down did Santana fail to notice as Brittany steadily became more withdrawn and quite. She finally noticed when they were walking home from school, where instead of Brittany's usual chatter there was silence, and instead of kissing Santana back she just sort of stood there. It worried Santana that Brittany could be so quite, usually it meant that she was thinking about something but Brittany never thought this long or hard about anything. When she tried to ask Brittany what was going on she watched as tears leaked out of the blondes eyes, and she collapsed into Santana's hug.

When Brittany had stopped crying Santana once again broached the subject, hands clasped tightly together and reassuring words whispered when Brittany asked if Santana would like her no matter what. Santana supposed this would be the conversation where feelings were touched upon and maybe Brittany would officially become her girlfriend, only they were interrupted rather rudely by a aging man holding a shotgun and Karofsky stood slightly behind him. "Is this her, Is this the mutant, boy." Santana couldn't even get any words out when Karofsky looked her in the eye and nodded, a smirk plastered across his face. Brittany reacted first, surprisingly before the trigger was pulled and without warning Karofsky was sent sailing through the air and the man who had managed to pull the trigger dissolved into nothingness taking the gun and the bullet with him, much to the horror of both Karofsky and Santana, who both stood staring at the other, mouths open wide. It was the loud sobs coming from next to her, which she realised was Brittany who had collapsed on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, begging for forgiveness before passing out.

Rachel's house was the closest, which was more than annoying when every member of the glee club turned into the living room to check on Brittany and to find out what the hell had happened. Santana explained it the best she could, but even she had no idea how the man had just dissolved into the air, or how Karofsky had been sent flying back. There first conclusion is that it was another mutant, or group of mutants because what happened there was next to impossible for one person alone, and the idea that there was a group of mutants killing people in Lima was all the more worrying because they would get the blame. Quinn remained quietly seated next to Brittany, which Santana thought was highly suspicious because Quinn didn't even know Brittany all that well and she usually preferred to stay next to her beau. Santana was not the first one to call her out, it was that obnoxious loud mouth Rachel who asked what was going on and proceeded to question Quinn despite her reluctance to answer.

Shockingly for Santana is was Brittany's tired voice that gave Quinn permission to tell them and shockingly that's when Santana realised that Brittany was a mutant too, it wasn't a group of mutants that had destroyed that old man, it had been sweet happy Brittany who Quinn had admitted had been so very scared that he was going to hurt Santana and what happened she couldn't control, it was a reflex. She should have felt happy that Brittany loved her enough to protect her, but she couldn't help but worry that Brittany could have incredible powers. Santana could teach Brittany a lot of things, but how to control her power that's something that only Brittany could figure out and Santana knew that Brittany was not the smartest of people.

They had to leave Lima after that, killing a human was unforgivable and Santana wasn't going to let anything happen to Brittany, her now proper girlfriend. She was terrified as to where they could go from here, but the insistence on accompanying them by the rest of the glee club calmed her fears immensely, something which only Quinn, Santana and Brittany would ever know. Shortly before their departure did Brittany entrust Santana and the others with her power, she could literally do anything she wanted, she could dissolve things into thin air, she could create things out of nothing, she could even change things like turn a pair of white trousers green. Molecular manipulation as Artie called it, and worryingly Brittany had no idea what molecules were, let alone how to control them enough to manipulate them. Nothing is beyond Brittany's reach, but she can't control it and that worries Santana more than anything, because what if one day she hurts somebody she cares about, Santana knows Brittany and she knows Brittany would never recover from something like that. Then something worse pops into her head, what if the government find out about Brittany and have her locked up, or killed because she has limitless power.

The others try their best to help Brittany with her powers, but the more Artie's physics lessons are taught by Santana the less and less control she has over her power. Much to Santana's dismay it's Kurt who figures it out first, because he's realised something that Santana has known since she first smelled Brittany. Brittany's a simple person; she works on simple explanations not in depth knowledge, so instead of getting Santana to ask Brittany to change O2 into H2O she asks her to make water. It works perfectly and she's presented with exactly what she asked for, bottled nicely into a pink glass bottle. Slowly Santana works her up from there, and after two weeks she has near complete mastery of her powers, which impresses Santana because Brittany's never been a fast learner. But Santana watches as Brittany demonstrates her control by creating a huge mansion in the middle of the desert with proper beds and everything. She's beyond happy, and so totally proud of her girlfriend that Santana takes her upstairs to christen there new bedroom, because even though there are rooms to spare, she's totally rooming with Brittany. She's even more surprised at the ability of her girlfriend when she heads downstairs while Brittany sleeps, hair messed, make up smudged and a huge ass grin plastered on her face, only to find Artie in complete shock that the huge mansion in completely and utterly untraceable, it is essentially their own little paradise.

There plans for world domination begin the next morning, where Quinn takes over from Santana and demands that Brittany create them an army. She's not entirely happy that her girlfriend is being used that way and tells Quinn so, twice out loud and one in her head, but Quinn doesn't relent so Santana resorts to glaring at her. Everybody's thoroughly amused when Brittany's first attempt at an army produce hundreds and thousands of Rabbits, all hopping around in perfect synchronisation, and there even more amused when Brittany squeals and goes to play with them, pretty soon joined by the rest of the gang minus herself who is content to stand and watch Brittany with nothing but complete love for her, and a rather annoyed Quinn who demands to know how they're going to take over the world with an army of Bunnies. Santana laughs and shrugs her shoulders, before turning her attention back to Brittany, because now she's not sure if she wants' world domination anymore and she's not sure if it's the answer. Maybe the humans could have their world; maybe it would be best at least for now to disappear, blend in and let the humans come to terms with everything in their own time. Quinn just scowls and shakes her head because she thinks it won't last, she's expecting a war and Santana knows she'll continue to prepare for a war but she hopes for now she's content to sit back and enjoy the peaceful sanctuary created by Brittany, because Brittany's convinced the humans will change and Santana can't help but think that too.


	2. Crossroads: AN

**A/N: I thought about adding another chapter to this, then I wrote the chapter and it just wouldn't flow right as a new chapter so I've decided to take a different route with this chapter and post it as a new story. It's called crossroads and you can find it via my profile. Thank you for reading and those who were kind enough to review/follow the story.**


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